Plastic Surgeon in training for Glasgow games

Plastic Surgeon in training for Glasgow games

September 10th, 2013

In the weeks leading up to the 2010 Commonwealth Games in Delhi the television news reports were filled with accounts of shoddy building work, unfinished athletes’ accommodation blocks and – worst of all – just days before the opening ceremony, a bridge at the Games venue collapsed.

Bizarrely, despite images of half completed joinery work and smashed bathroom suites, one of the biggest problems was that almost all the internal walls were covered in bright red stains; apparently caused by the building workers’ habit of spitting while chewing a type of nut.

So far, if the pictures of the Sir Chris Hoy Velodrome are anything to go by, we can expect Glasgow’s facilities to be in far better shape when the teams start arriving next year; but staging any major sports event remains a huge challenge.

In total, 6500 athletes and team officials will be living in the village that has been constructed around the area of Celtic’s Ibrox Park, accommodated in 426 single bedrooms, 2487 double rooms, 82 triple rooms and 279 four-berth rooms. In addition there are more than 2000 bathrooms, along with other shared living spaces and a 2,200 seater dining room that is expected to serve up 100 plus tonnes of food over the two weeks.

Some of the UK’s biggest building companies have been involved in erecting the main arenas and ancillary accommodation in Glasgow, with apprenticeships for local workers being an important element to the competition’s eventual legacy.

However, no matter how hard they have all worked, every construction project finishes with the site management having to address a long list of ‘snagging’ issues: all the little knocks, scratches and patches of discolouration where building elements don’t quite match up to the sample panels in the architect’s office. And that’s where Plastic Surgeon’s own team of highly trained repair specialists can prove their worth.

As the UK’s only national cosmetic repair contractor, Plastic Surgeon maintains a Scottish Region and has long experience of helping complete big sports venues; the FA’s new national training centre at Burton-on-Trent being the most recent.

So while competitors have been training on their fitness, speed and strength, our Finishers have been continuing to develop their skills in mending chipped washbasins, cracked shower trays, dented sinks and gouged window frames as well as colour matching painted, anodized and other surfaces across the entire colour spectrum.

Plastic Surgeon has over 100 highly trained operatives and often moves them around the regions to meet spikes in demand due to big projects, such as when a major commercial development was nearing completion on Liverpool’s historic waterfront.

There are even now a series of ‘Super Vans’ on the road carrying heavy duty spraying equipment that allows the teams to deal with major jobs such as repainting industrial doors or whole façades of cladding. At the other end of the scale our Finishers typically complete up to a dozen different ‘smart repairs’ in a day – preparing, filling, smoothing and colour matching small areas of damage to various fittings. Our Finishers are even kitted out to polish scratches out of glazing.

In every instance our ethos is to repair rather than replace as the most cost effective and sustainable means of completing building projects. That’s our legacy to every job we work on.